Alpha Fusion - NYC

So it's been a while since our last post, keeping up with a blog is a lot harder than we thought it would be! Today's errands took me to the Penn Station area and lunch was at Alpha Fusion. I had heard that their Chelsea location was really good and they had really unique and inventive sushi rolls - like the kind from California that I always miss. Then Alpha Fusion came out with a Living Social coupon offer - $25 for a $50 gift certificate, which I quickly grabbed up. The 34th Street location is in kind of a random location between 8th and 9th - it's actually next to a small parking lot, and the inside wasn't too great either. Actually the inside was fine by itself, it had a modern decor, but they opened the restaurant to the outside that day so I couldn't really get past the random location. I don't know how to explain it...it seemed a little strip mall-ish to me. I guess it would be an okay place if you are already in the area but based on the atmosphere and out-of-reach location alone, I don't know if I would come back here.

The food didn't make up for the location either. First off, we got the "Spicy Tuna on Pringles with Black Tobiko." Yes...that's raw tuna on a Pringle. I really liked the novelty factor, and their spicy tuna is pretty good, but I don't think it was particularly enhanced by the potato chip at all. I actually didn't really notice it.

For sushi rolls, we got: the Volcano (chicken tempura roll topped with spicy tuna and chili pepper), Red Hot Dragon (shrimp tempura roll topped with spicy tuna and crunchy), and the Spicy Alpha (crunchy spicy salmon roll topped with tuna, salmon, and avocado) - each around $14. None of these rolls really stood out to me - I don't think their sushi rice was made that well. It seemed like regular white rice to me and didn't hold together well on some of the rolls (there was also just too much rice in my opinion). My favorite of the three would be the Red Hot Dragon, if I had to choose. They give a fair amount of spicy tuna on top of the Red Hot Dragon - the spicy tuna was probably my favorite part. As for the Volcano roll, it was my first time having chicken in a sushi roll...and I just don't think it's meant to be. If it was just chicken and rice - sure. But adding spicy tuna to fried chicken didn't do it for me.

The service at the restaurant was really nice though. They were attentive and I think the bartender was trying out different drink recipes at the time - the manager came around with free shots for us to try. However, my dining partner was dreadfully hungover from the night before, so we politely declined.

Alpha Fusion was definitely a good value with our gift certificate, but it probably won't be a repeat for me. The Chelsea location might be better? I also didn't think these rolls compared to the sushi I had in California!